GROWING SISTERHOOD: Paths converge at the Miyazaki Japanese Garden in Virginia Beach, Virginia. All Photos Credit: John A. Bray

There is a stone dedicated to Yuriko Hamada. A Kousa Dogwood honoring Leon Smith keeps it company. The path leads back and forth across two bridges, circling around to the beginning and past a vanishing point far inside a cherry blossom tunnel. A waterfall trickles beneath the roar of Oceana. The tireless pursuit, often noted along the way here, is friendship. The Miyazaki Japanese Garden in Virginia Beach, Virginia, was created to commemorate the fifth anniversary of the city’s sister relationship with the garden’s namesake city in Japan and was dedicated in 1997.